


content to be slightly forlorn

by sulfuric



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Animal Death, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Suicide Attempt, this is essentially 6000 words of Pure Gay, very brief tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6960295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sulfuric/pseuds/sulfuric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a small story about a small collection of things: a boy named newt, a boy named minho, a place called the glade, and how they came to call it (and each other) home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	content to be slightly forlorn

**Author's Note:**

> so im back? after 5 months? woops. well, this was supposed to be just one scene but ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> prompt/first line from [here](http://putthepromptsonpaper.tumblr.com/), enjoy!

Minho was like the air, both of them stale and hard to handle. He’d insisted on keeping the door to the map room closed, trapping the two of them alone in the small space. Newt was pretty sure this was what a bunker or a bomb shelter would be like, even though he couldn’t remember ever seeing either in person or on TV. If he even _had_ a TV in his life before the maze.  

If he had to describe the room in a word, he would pick _musty_. There were a bunch of old running shoes lying around that had clearly seen better days. Underneath the central table, covered in sheets of paper - maps - were the chests they were stored in, old and ornate-looking. Everything else was covered in a thin film of dust. Minho didn’t seem to mind it at all, bent over the newest of the maps and scrutinizing them, looking for patterns hidden in the dark zigzag of lines.

Newt coughed, willing the breeze outside to find a way in. A moment passed and, surprisingly, the wind didn’t spontaneously develop the ability to pass through concrete. He sighed, playing with the fabric tied around wrist.

If Minho had heard Newt, he wasn’t showing it. The concentration radiated off of him, coming to a focus in the folds of the skin right in between his eyebrows, pulled together in frustration.

Obviously, today was not the day Minho was getting them out of that shuck place.

It was something he talked about often, a familiar phrase that accompanied the rhythmic slap of their feet on the concrete of the maze each day. Newt was still in training, and Minho didn’t have any hesitation reminding him why they voluntarily subjected themselves to a full day, every day, of running nonstop. _To get us all out of this shuck place._ They were trapped, and Minho was determined - no, more than determined: decided - on getting out.

The more experienced runner let out a groan of frustration, setting aside the map in his hands and picking up another. It wasn’t unusual for Newt to see him like this. In the short time Newt had known Minho, he could be best described as generally annoyed. At first, Newt had thought it was _his_ fault, but had soon grown to learn that was just the way Minho was. What puzzled Newt more was how quick he could be drawn out of his seemingly eternal state of eye-rolling. It was as quick as a chameleon changing colour, or a sun shower raining down on a summer afternoon. He went from deadpan snark to oozing charm; jogging in silence to cracking jokes. He was a mystery that Newt desperately wanted to solve, more so than the maze or the world beyond it.

But still, he was kind of a dick. Especially when he refused to open the bloody door of the bloody map room.

“Hey,” Newt said. Minho looked up, waiting. Newt smiled, one side of his mouth quirking upwards. “Say we opened the bloody door.”

The hard gaze dissolved into a classic eyeroll. _Chameleon._ “Say you actually helped for once, shuck-face.”

“Say I had some fresh oxygen goin’ to my brain cells.”

“We’re not opening the door.”

“You’re gonna suffocate one of these days, y’know.”

“At least I won’t have to be forced to hear your complaining anymore.” Minho flashed a grin. There was not an ounce of malice in his words.

Newt bit back a smile. Out of all the versions of Minho he’d uncovered so far, this might be his favourite. The easy back and forth, the lightness of it all. After a month of everything being new and sharp and unknown, it was a relief to have something that felt so natural, so _right_. Moments like this were like fresh air, even in the stuffiness of the map room.

And these moments, they weren’t few or far in between, either. It was getting to be more often that the two of them could just _talk_ , usually starting out as some half-hearted bicker or banter and then dissolving into conversations that could last hours, about nothing and everything all at once. Other times, they could run or sit in silence for an equal length of time, just being in each other’s company. In the glade, it could get overwhelming in the throng of boys, shrouded by the common confusion and fear. Alone, those same feelings could creep out and envelop Newt entirely. But with Minho, everything else faded away.

Newt studied Minho now, watching him back at work on the maps. His face bore a bit more of a relaxed expression than before, but Newt could see the same laser-like focus still in his eyes. He’d always considered himself no more than a responsibility of Minho’s, like he was a child to watch over or a plant to water every few days. But there was something that Alby had said to Newt a few days prior, at the bonfire for the new greenie: _You might actually be the first trainee he hasn’t tried to feed to the grievers._

It was probably said in passing, yes, and Alby had probably had a little more of Gally’s moonshine than he should’ve, sure, but the statement still held some truth in it. Newt’s first reaction was to reject it, but he was coming to realize it’s validity. Minho was never shy to vocalize his discontent with others, and especially not to Newt. It wasn’t even ten minutes earlier that Minho had made a comment about how ‘sloppy and shit of a job’ Alex’s maps always were.

Newt sighed softly, trying to push the thoughts of Minho and his antics into the attic of his brain. He wished he could get rid of the flutter in his chest that came with the thought of him, too.

His voice came out of nowhere. “Alright, greenie, quittin’ time. None of this klunk’s getting us out of here tonight.”

“Hey, I’m not the greenie anymore.”

Minho considered. “Whatever you say, greenie.”

Newt just rolled his eyes, sliding off the chest he was perched on. Pins and needles assaulted his legs in protest of the movement. He decided not to dignify Minho’s retort with further recognition. Mostly because he really did want to breathe air that didn’t taste like a week-old fart, but a small part of him (very, _very_ small part of him, Newt reassured himself) enjoyed the self-satisfied smirk that found itself on Minho’s face whenever Newt accepted whatever dumb insult or proclamation or nickname it was that particular day.

It was nice to see Minho have a victory, however small.

 

A couple of months passed, in the same hazy fashion that the days of summer blur together. It didn’t take long for the initial horror of it all to dissipate. Chest-seizing panic, night terrors, and bouts of crying at any given moment eventually gave way a calmer, more muted way of suffering. A gnawing rot settled into the pit of Newt’s stomach, a permanent companion to the constant questioning he was sure haunted each and every glader.

It sounds unbearable, but it wasn’t, really. Almost the entirety of Newt’s days were spent running the maze, a collection of sights and sounds: grey slabs placed one after another, long, snaking vines, the back of Minho’s ankles; shitty shoes slapping against the ground, the sharp slice of a machete followed by a quiet thump, two sets of lungs and throats and hearts, working, working, working. It was easy to lose himself in the maze, and in Minho. To fall into the folds of his voice, the softness of his skin, the rhythm of his breathing. Newt was collecting Minho, piece by piece, day by day. An amalgam of observations: Minho, the runner. Minho, the smartass. Minho, the tender.

Minho, the mystery.

Late at night, when he couldn’t sleep, Newt would allow himself to go through the things he had gathered, laying them out in front of him. _He double knots his shoelaces. He cracks his knuckles when he’s angry or upset, one at a time. He wants to kill the creators. He wishes they had a dog. He has a different smile for every flavour of happiness._

_And every one of them is beautiful._

Newt wasn’t stupid. He was quite smart, actually. Pretty sure he coulda been one of those smart types, like _really_ smart, in another life at least. He would never know. But he was smart enough now, in this life, to know what it meant when his heartbeat quickened. And he was smart enough to know that _that_ means he had to keep these things (thoughts, feelings, wishes) to himself.

And Newt was okay with that, until he wasn’t.

 

The part where he wasn’t came only a few weeks after Newt’s observations coagulated into the actuality of a realization. It was a normal evening, nearly an hour after Newt and Minho had finished with the maps, when Minho slipped out of the homestead, illuminated by the dying light of the sun as it slipped below the walls of the maze.

He was cracking his knuckles.

Newt should have seen it coming. It had been _months_ that Minho had been “training” him, a term Newt considered loosely. He was essentially a senior runner, even though he was still the newest of them.

“I’m training the newbie, starting tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Newt didn’t mean to say it, but out it came anyway. The word shaped his breath, held his exhale hostage. _Oh._ It fell onto Newt’s lap, breaking into thick slabs of disappointment.

“Yeah.” _Crack crack crack._

Newt just nodded, taking it in. It made sense - more runners, more sections of the maze explored.

There was a final _crack,_ punctuating the silence between them. Then, the chameleon cracked a smile. “‘Least I won’t have to be forced to hear your complaining anymore.”

Newt let out a snort, and Minho a chuckle. But both were lacking in conviction. They felt the strange emptiness hanging around them. Neither said anything about it; they knew they didn’t have to.

It felt like something was ending, but Newt and Minho were far from finished.

 

They found other ways to spend time together, whether it was a silent breakfast in the early hours of dawn or a healthy back and forth spanning long after the day’s end. Newt gathered these moments in his mind, trying to soak in every interaction like a sponge. It was a fitting metaphor - Newt’s mind was full of holes. And if the craters of his past could only be filled with the sediment that was Minho, dry and true, then Newt would gladly cement the layers together.

 

The map room was another place where Newt’s smiles came easier, another domain to be placed in the corner of his mind labelled _theirs._ They remained long after the other runners had gone, even after Minho had dismissed his new trainee. Newt remembered the first time it happened:

 

_“Hey greenie, you can beat it for today.”_

_“Sorry?”_

_“Get outta here. Get some grub. Before I change my mind.”_

_“Alright.”_

 

The runner - Ryan or Ryder or Rick or something along those lines - hadn’t put up a fight, heading back out to the glade without giving the maps a second glance. Newt got up to close the door again, a habit he had since picked up, one he hated. But he still did it anyway. That first time, Newt had looked at Minho funny. He’d only looked down in response, and Newt almost swore he could see the slightest blush colouring the tan of Minho’s cheeks.

Now, with each day’s dismissal, they would share a smile like a secret, theirs and theirs alone. It was these afternoons, sometimes stretching into the hours of evening, that the two runners really came alive. Where there had once been Newt’s silent indifference and Minho’s frustration, there was now a constant flow of ideas, talk of patterns and sections and maps. It was the fire in Minho’s eyes that Newt loved the most.

 

Somewhere along the line, Newt stopped looking away when Minho’s gaze met his. He stopped biting back his words, and holding back his feet. At some point, he and Minho had become equals rather than the runner and the trainee. Friends, even. To anyone on the outside, this would not be a strange concept. _Of course Newt and Minho were friends. Close friends, even._ But to Newt, the idea was foreign and familiar all at once. Something he’d simultaneously earned and rejected at the same time, for reasons unknown.

Somewhere in there, he stopped caring so much. His tongue got a little bit looser, his spine a little bit straighter. There was respect there, and not just from Minho. Alby had become a close friend, Frypan another. He came to realize he was well-liked among the gladers - actually, genuinely well-liked.

The glade was now farther from a prison and closer to a home.

 

A year went by.

Newt’s collection grew. It was no longer a paltry collection of concepts but a maze of thoughts and words saved, each twist and turn revealing a new facet of Minho. Newt still could not fathom how the boy had so many edges, yet could hold such a softness in his words, if he wanted to.

In the thirteenth month after his arrival, softness presented itself in Newt’s life in a different form: five blue petals, joined by a burst of yellow in the centre. It was satin in Newt’s palm and it was burning in Newt’s palm and it was placed into Newt’s palm with sturdy fingers. Accompanying the gift was a half-mumbled half-swallowed explanation that was fully spoken toward Newt’s feet.

“I found it in the deadheads, and, uh,” Throat clearing, feet shuffling. “I wanted you to have it.” he said, glancing up to Newt for a thin slice of a second, cheeks flushed.

He had walked away without another word of explanation, nor any apparent desire to see or hear Newt’s reaction. This was something for which Newt was thankful, or else all his thoughts and questions and _feelings_ might have come pouring out, spilling over the space between him and the flower-picker. Among the questions were these:

 

_#1: Why was he by the deadheads?_

Answer: An obvious one, so obvious Newt was ashamed the question had even crossed through his mind. Just a week prior, Christian had died. One of the oldest of the runners, and a good friend of Minho’s. The gladers had decided to see if they could send someone down into the shaft of the Box. Christian had volunteered right out, the brave lug that he was.

He only got five metres before they heard the _snip_ , and the scream.

There obviously wasn’t anything to bury, but Nick was adamant that they create a grave (read: a cross-like arrangement of sticks with the letters _C H R I S T I A N_ carved across the middle section) for him anyway. Minho liked to visit it in the evenings, just as the day cooled and the light turned a rich cobalt.

 

_#2: Flowers?_

Answer: Yes, flowers. Apparently.

 

_#3: He wanted me to have it?_

Answer: Minho gave Newt a lot of things: pencils, running tips, shoves, sarcasm, smiles, food, stories, speculations, and hope. Flowers did not frequent that list, ever. The gesture seemed so out of place to Newt. So very un-Minho. The fumbling of words, the downward slope of his gaze, his confidence. The sentiment.

Newt really couldn’t work out the answer for this one.

The real answer, the one Newt couldn’t work out:  Minho wanted Newt to have a lot of things.

 

Though the questions and the reliability of their answers were quite questionable, the _thoughts_ and _feelings_ components of the thoughts and questions and feelings stew were even more indistinguishable. But still, as Newt stood with that tiny flower in his hand (which, for the record, was maybe one of the most beautiful things he could ever remember seeing) there was the unmistakable and unfortunately distinguishable _feeling_ happening right then and there. The lingering tingle where Minho’s fingers had brushed his, the rapid fluttering in his chest, the lump sucking all the moisture from his tongue, the sudden disappearance of any and all instructions on basic speech, etc, etc.

A minute later, Newt was standing in the exact same spot and a nameless voice in the back of his mind offered a suggestion in the form of a whisper: a name to attach to this unfortunate distinction of emotion.

 _Love_.

 

It’s this same crappy distinction - yes, Newt declared it crappy, because _feelings_ were crappy even when they were profound and beautiful and pure and all those other descriptors he might use if he was ever a poet in another life - that catalyzes a conversation with Alby.

“You want to ask the creators for… a _dog_?” The question was skeptical at best, Alby’s hands moving to his hips as he spoke.

“Well, yeah.”

Alby looked less than impressed, with a side of suspicious. “Why?”

Newt inhaled. “I think it’d be nice to have a pet around, like a kind of companion for the guys, or sort of a boost in morale, yeah? Dogs aren’t too hard to care for, just throw a stick around and they’re happy - we’ve got plenty of buggin’ sticks lyin’ around just waiting to be slobbered on by some cute little drooling mutt -” Newt exhaled, out of breath. He coughed slightly, studying Alby’s unchanging expression. Newt quirked a grin. “- and besides, maybe if they give us a dog you’ll be able to make a bloody friend for once.”

Alby cracked a smile at that one. “Unlike you.” he said, and the two of them laughed, even though they both knew it couldn’t be further from the truth.

It was a nice moment, and Newt quite liked Alby, but he could feel his chances dwindling with each additional second the silence lingered between them. “And, uhm,” he added, “it was actually Minho’s idea. He said it would be good for the others, because it’s been over a year since the first of us were sent up, and it might be a good distraction so people don’t lose hope, yeah?” This was a blatant lie; Minho never said any of those things, but Newt figured it might be worth more to Alby coming from a more senior glader.

Alby’s face changed then, his expression an unreadable one. He was silent, nodding his head in an infinitesimally small motion, up and down, his lips turned barely upwards. Newt braced himself for an outburst of laughter, or perhaps a flat-out rejection.

Instead, he got an, “Alright.”

“Alright?”

“Yeah, alright. I’ll run it by Nick, see what he says.”

“Thanks, Alby.”

“Yeah, anytime.” Then Alby _winked,_ and started walking toward the homestead with muted smugness filling his features.

Newt didn’t know what that meant (he had a feeling about it) and he didn’t want to know (he didn’t want to address it, not then and not ever).

 

Newt should have known Minho would give it a stupid name - should have known he’d _insist_ on being the one to name it. There were a few grumbles, but nobody could stay mad for long. Minho was just so _excited,_ smile reaching as far as his lips would allow (not all too unfamiliar for Newt, but for many of the other gladers it was, well, weird, but also incredibly endearing). The dog had taken to Minho almost immediately, and even though he was the glade’s dog, there was a sense of ownership tied to Minho and the dog that nobody could deny.

 

Even a month after the dog’s arrival, Newt remembered each moment as it unfolded: it was late afternoon; he had barely returned from running his section when the alarm started blaring, announcing the Box’s arrival. A quick glance around the opening mouth of the lift told Newt that Minho was still in the maze. He looked to the east doors, where he knew Minho would eventually be coming through. There was nothing there but ivy and dust and stone.

Inside the box, however, there was much more. While still gazing, definitely _not_ longingly, at the doors, Newt heard a few of the gladers gasp, with a collective question being asked.

“A dog?”

Newt tore his gaze away and directed it toward the alleged animal. “Bloody hell.” The words slipped out of him before he could swallow them back down. It really _was_ a dog, there in their Box, in their glade where there were only goats and cows and chickens and boys. It was a dog.

Nobody moved to lower themselves down into the Box. The dog just sat there, looking at the gladers with a patient face and a slight smile that seemed to say _oh, hello._ Newt looked at it and felt something twitch deep inside the cavities of his heart. Something about the golden fur seemed… familiar. He wondered if maybe he had a dog, in his life before the glade.

A buzz of excitement started to fill the air around them, a few of the younger boys letting out whoops and cheers. Even the dog started wagging its tail. Newt looked up, feeling a smile spreading on his own face. He caught Alby’s gaze and the older boy winked, giving Newt a small thumbs up.

Then, a voice called out. “What’d those shuck creators bring us this-” a loud _bark_ sounded out, and the voice stopped as if it had ran straight into a brick wall.

Newt smiled, and everyone fell silent.

A second later, on the other side of the circle, Minho emerged, eyes shooting down into the Box.

“Holy shuck.” he whispered, face showing the perfect picture of shock and fear before melting into pure elation as he sank almost to his knees, steadying himself with one hand before leaping down into the Box. The dog barked again, louder, tail wagging furiously now. Minho was sat down beside it, scratching the back of its neck.

There was a collective feeling of awe among the gladers as they stood, watching their ever-stoic runner ( _keeper_ of the runners, now, Newt had to remind himself) turn into a giddy little _kid,_ lying in the dirty lift playing with a dog.

“Well,” Gally said then, smile still lingering on his lips, “we gotta give it a name.”

There was shared mumbling of agreement, and a few gladers called out suggestions. There was Spot, and Fido, and even Droolsworth. A younger boy kept repeating the word fart, getting a few giggles here and there.

“Bark. Let’s called him Bark.” Minho said, grinning up at the gladers, squinting into the sun. People nodded, no protests erupting.

A few seconds later, Nick laughed. “Alright, then. Let’s all welcome our newest, and, well, hairiest-”

“Yeah, except for Frypan!” Gally called out, laughing.

“Hey!”

Someone snorted, and Nick rolled his eyes. “Anyway,” he said, bending down to look at the dog, now getting a belly rub.  “welcome to the glade, Bark.”

Bark barked in response, earning a cheer from the rest of the gladers. Minho laughed - and it wasn’t a _ha ha this is funny_ kind of laugh but a genuine one, the kind that starts deep in the pit of your stomach and erupts upward and outward, spewing euphoria from every pore. He looked upward, locking eyes with Newt.

Flames erupted inside of his heart.

 

Though the thought of smiles for dogs burning holes in his chest stayed with Newt, it was probably the aftermath of it that Newt remembered more. It was hours after everyone went to bed, and Newt was lying in his hammock, half asleep. He’d always been a light sleeper, but that night was different. He felt something, something _wrong._

He only needed quick survey of the area around him to figure out what it was. The hammock beside his was empty, which meant Minho was missing. Fear had a second to lace through Newt’s veins before a dark figure appeared on the edge of his vision.

“Hey.” whispered Minho.

Newt exhaled. “Bloody hell, Minho. What are you _doing_?”

A small smile slipped onto Minho’s face. “I wanted to walk him.” he said, gesturing to Bark, who was sitting obediently by his side.

Newt willed his heartbeat, pounding in his ears - not for the fear that had dissipated immediately, but _him_ \- to slow. He had no words for Minho, so he gave him a look that he hoped was at least semi-anything but completely enamoured instead.

“You’re supposed to walk them.”

Newt did his best to look sleepy, nonchalant. “That’s the memory they decided to let you keep, that you’re supposed to walk dogs?”

Minho gave a short, quiet laugh. “Shut up.” he said, plopping down - almost _falling_ \- onto the barely-there free space of Newt’s hammock. The motion caused the whole thing to swing wildly, but neither Newt nor Minho moved out a leg to slow it, shoulders pressed right together.

They’d shared a hammock before, sure, but always facing each other with their feet on opposite ends. And in the daylight. Somehow, with the blanket of stars above and the warm air of Minho’s breath _right there_ , the entire setup was infinitely more intimate.

Not that Newt really minded, of course.

They lay in silence for a few more minutes, bodies angling toward each other as the hammock slowed its rocking. Another collection of minutes passed and Minho spoke, voice deeper than usual. “You got me a dog.”

“Hmm.”

“You got me a dog.” he repeated, shifting just a bit to see Newt’s eyelids, closed. His words lacked the normal Minho grandeur, stripped of charm and sarcasm to show the scaffolding of his thoughts: stated simply, but teeming with hidden meanings and complexity under the surface. It was when he spoke like this that Newt knew his words carried so much more meaning than they seemed to.

Newt focused on keeping his eyelids calm and unmoving. “And?”

A few beats passed. “Is it because you’re in love with me?” Minho asked, the beginnings of laughter starting to bubble out of him. _Like a chameleon._

Newt opened one eyelid, raising a single eyebrow. _Yes._ He looked at Minho, searching for the depth hidden in his statement from just minutes before. There was something different in his eyes, and it caught in Newt’s throat. It easily could have been _something_ , but more likely was just a reflection of Newt’s own hopes. “Ah, shit. You’ve got it, Minho, that’s it.” he said, surprised by how unshaky his answer came out. Just banter, just like always.

“Knew it.” Minho said, nodding. The hammock swayed slightly. A moment later, “That’s good, though. ‘Cause I’m in love with you, too.” If his voice were a painting, it would be the perfect picture of sarcasm.

Newt rolled his eyes, not able to hold back his grin. It was nice to hear the words, even if they would never - could never - be spoken sincerely. “That’s right, yeah?”

And just like that, Minho changed colours again. “Yeah.” it was a whisper, nearly a _whimper_ , and Newt had to stop and turn to face his friend full on. “That’s right.” Minho echoed, with almost an edge of bitterness or anger in it, but the overlying emotion was _sadness._ Minho was looking right at - into - Newt, with the softest of frowns gracing his lips and the most impossible wetness shimmering in his eyes and it was in that moment that Newt understood.

Oh, god, how he understood.

It was not a single second later that Minho’s hands were on the sides of Newt’s face,  Newt’s own hands up the back of Minho’s neck and pulling him closer, closer, until their lips were pressed together. The hammock curved around them, melding their bodies together as Newt’s heartbeat exploded in his ears. Minho’s lips moved against his, sending an intense heat searing through him, like lava flowing through his veins (Newt wanted to drink in every last bit of it).

It seemed as if only a few seconds had passed before they pulled apart, foreheads still together but lips just barely parted, two sets of lungs breathing into each other with heavy, exultant breaths. Neither made a move to separate any further, nor to untangle any of their limbs. Newt’s mind was a complete and utter mess - millions of thoughts buzzing around in one tiny place, all muddled by the loud wet thud of his own heart.

Through the static came one word, crystal clear: _Minho._ Minho, the runner. Minho, the smartass. Minho, the tender. Minho, the mystery. Minho, his best friend. Minho, his heart beating in his chest. Minho, the boy he was holding, the boy he was melded to. Minho, Minho, Minho. The boy he had just kissed. The boy he never wanted to stop kissing. The boy who suddenly laughed, a short thing just spilling over with elation, and said, “Finally.”

 

There’s a small but significant conversation that takes place in the cool dawn of the next morning:

 

“Can we stay? Like this?”

“What about the maze?”

“No, I mean like _this_.

“Oh.”

“If you don’t-”

“No, I do. I want to.”

“Then good that.”

“Good that.”

 

There’s a shift in the energy between Newt and Minho after that night. It’s completely different but all the same all at once. Their lives continued on in the same fashion they always had in the glade, but with just a bit more of a spark in them. Arms brushed against each other more frequently and more smiles were shared, but without the ache churning in their gut that said _he’ll never think of me the same_. They ate breakfast at dawn, ran their sections for the day, poured over the maps, went for dinner, and slept side by side with each fall of night. It was a routine, one that Newt was thankful for. Life, even living it as a part of some twisted experiment or punishment or whatever, was pretty nice.

Until it wasn’t.

Of course, _obviously,_ just as Newt was getting okay with the whole living-trapped-inside-a-goddamned-bloody-maze thing, his more than decent circumstances just _had_ to take a nosedive into a pile of absolute shit. And not just any old shit - the really fucking gross kind, old and hardened with flies buzzing around it, each day accumulating more degrees of disgustingness until it was literally as shitty as a pile of shit could be. And as fate would so kindly have it, the lucky dog who got to take the initial crap was the glade’s very own.

It was dumb, truly, how it happened. During the days Bark would stay in the glade, trotting around from place to place, rolling in the grass or helping the gladers in whatever way, whether it be waiting for scraps in the kitchen or digging up holes in the gardens. When late afternoon came, he would wait patiently by the doors for the runners to return, then follow them into the map room with a wagging tail and a lolling tongue.

One day, Minho took a bit of extra time to scour the outer edges of his section. Just a few minutes before his return, Bark slipped through the doors unseen. When the doors closed, no more than moments after Minho’s arrival, all of the gladers were accounted for on the inside, except for one.

The loss hit everyone pretty bad, but nobody took it harder than Minho.

The five stages of grief came up in Newt’s mind, another remnant from outside the maze. He considered. There was definitely denial; nobody actually knew for sure if Bark had gone into the maze or not. Nick had administered a glade-wide search for him, but to no avail. His body was never seen in the maze, either. There was anger, too, but no good place to put it - it wasn’t anyone’s fault. Bargaining was short lived, but depression took hold of most of the gladers. Eventually it gave way to acceptance, and life carried on. They survived, as they always had.

Newt was pretty sure Minho got stuck, though, somewhere around anger. It wasn’t the hot, fast anger that sometimes found its way into him, intense but never there for long. It was something more of a thin membrane of animosity, forming itself to Minho’s figure and never quite letting go. It was slightly permeable, of course, to allow for breathing and the like, but everything Minho said, everything he did, everything he _was_ , now, had an undertone of distaste. Like someone had ripped away his steely determination and can-do essence and replaced it with a thin sheet of _unhappy_. He grew despondent, impatient, and uninterested. Even with Newt he was like a duller version of himself, eyes never quite glittering the same.

It was unbearable. Newt hated to watch the boy he loved grow so far from him, for the puzzle he’d nearly solved to scramble itself up again, shutting the box. One night, lying in the thick silence Newt had grown accustomed to, Minho’s voice broke through the night.

“They’re never gonna let us leave this place.”

 

After four entire weeks of it, Newt broke. Four weeks of words swallowed rather than spoken, four weeks of sad lips and sadder eyes, four weeks of barely any touch, barely any contact, four weeks of distance blooming out between them. Four weeks of Minho’s words echoing in Newt’s head: _they’re never gonna let us leave this place._ Four weeks of thinking, really thinking, and realizing that Minho was _right_. Four weeks for every single thing Newt had grown accustomed to to change, leaving him with nothing but a ghost of a lover and a torn up heart rotting inside his ribcage.

Four weeks before a decision was made, and ivy was climbed, and Newt was hoisted up among the vines. He looked out into the maze - section seven - thought, _maybe we can leave, Minho,_ and then he let go.

  
  
  


The darkness fell away in the form of muffled sobs and a squeezing on his hand. Newt opened one eye to a dimly lit room (the darkness of which he was thankful for) and let his eyes adjust, distinguishable things like chairs and walls slowly coming into view. There was additionally a dark mass strewn across his chest, like a massive blanket or - something that’s moving, in twitchy, broken pulses.

 _Oh,_ Newt thought, realizing. _It’s Minho._ He was crying softly, Newt heard it then. Newt was lying in bed, _alive_ , a sharp aching in his right leg and Minho draped over him, crying.

He was _alive._

“Minho.” he whispered, no more than a near-silent croak.

His head shot up, whipping to the right to look at Newt. Salty tracks of dried tears glistened in the shadowy light, highlighting the mixture of emotion on his face: shock, happiness, relief, sadness, shame.

He nearly launched himself at Newt’s chest then, flinging his arms around Newt’s neck and letting his chest heave, quite literally crying on Newt’s shoulder. Newt had seen Minho upset before, he’d seen him angry. He’d even seen him cry, once or twice, but never in such a profoundly emotional display as this. Minho had shed everything, every barrier that he worked so hard to keep up each and every day, and all that was left was just Minho himself, bare. No summery clouds, no chameleon tricks.

Newt buried his head into Minho’s hair and found that he was crying, too.

 

It seemed like hours later, though it could have been only minutes, when the first words were exchanged.

“I never meant for you to prove me wrong.”

“I wasn’t trying to.”

Minho looked at Newt in a way that suggests that maybe he’s a mystery, too. Maybe Minho’s collecting pieces of him, trying to solve him like a maze. But then again, people are so much more complex than any maze the creators could have ever built.

“I love you, Newt.”

Maybe they weren’t ever going to leave the glade, or the maze, but Newt would learn how to be okay with that. He would gladly wander through the unknown if it meant wandering with Minho.

“I love you too, Min.”

 


End file.
